You are here

Bachelor Thesis

Posted on 14 September 2012 - 23:41

State:

Finished

Period:

July 2012 to August 2012

We're allowed to choose our own topic for our bachelor thesis so I suggested the E-Sheet project so I could work on it and be doing something for my thesis. But the proposal was rejected, So I needed to pick something else or adjust the suggested topic. I choose for the second option. The final topic was titled "Interactive tabular data on touch devices".

For the implementation I used the Piccolo. Piccolo is a monolithic interaction toolkit, which allows to easily create a Zoomable User Interface (ZUI). A ZUI is an UI where users can change the scale of the viewed area in order to see more detail or less, and browse through different documents.

I implemented several ways to enter data into the cells, the methods are divided in two main categories inline text editing and data entry using pop-ups. I also created two on-screen keyboards; a normal keyboard and a phone keyboard for screens with lower resolutions. The entered data is stored locally using a SQLite database.

The application was tested by several members of the RBIHF and they came to the following conclusion. They preferred inline text editing, there was however a small part of pop-ups they preferred; the fact that there is an overview of all the possibilities when the possible data isn't predefined.

For the testing of the application I used a General Dynamics GD3015 which I was luckily able to borrow since it's pretty expensive for a student. Another advantage with this tablet is that it's semi-rugged, so it is less likely to break when it falls on the ice.